“We’ve done nothing against you, Snyn—”
The armsman spat. And Kartr guessed that he could not reach him with any reasoning. There was only one thing left to do. But it was something he had sworn to himself long ago never to try—not against any of his own kind. And would the others allow him if he wished to? He stared across the writhing body of the armsman at Smitt.
“He’s dangerous—”
Smitt glanced up at the ragged tear in the wall, still glowing cherry red.
“You don’t have to underline that!” Then the com-techneer shifted his feet uneasily. “What are you going to do with him?”
Long afterward Kartr realized that that had been the turning point. For, instead of appealing to Smitt or to his own men for backing, he made his own decision. Lightning swift and compelling he launched his will against the guard of the man before him. Snyn’s contorted face was a dusky red, his twisted mouth flecked with foam. But he had no control, no mind barrier which could hold against the sergeant’s trained power. His eyes glazed, fixed. He ceased to struggle, his mouth fell slackly open.
Smitt half drew his own blaster.
“What are you doing to him?”
Snyn was relaxed and very still now, his eyes on the metal above him.
Smitt reached out to clutch at Kartr’s shoulder. “What did you do to him?”
“Quieted him down. He’ll sleep it off.”
But Smitt was edging toward the door, backing out. “Let me alone!” His voice rose shakily. “Let me alone—you—you blasted Bemmy!” He scrambled for the opening in panicky haste but Rolth reached it before him to block his exit. Smitt turned and faced them, breathing hard—a hunted animal.
“We’re not going to touch you.” Kartr did not move from his seat or raise his voice. Rolth caught the hand signal he made. The Faltharian hesitated a second and then he obeyed, stepping out of the doorway. But even seeing a clear exit now Smitt did not move. Instead he continued to watch Kartr and asked shakily:
“Can you do—do that to any of us?”
“Probably. You’ve never cultivated a high mind block—any of you.”
Smitt’s blaster went back into its holster. He rubbed his sweating face with trembling hands.
“Then why didn’t you—just now—?”
“Why didn’t I use the mind power on you? Why should I? You weren’t planning to burn us—you were entirely sane—”
Smitt was steadying. The panic which had ridden him was almost gone. Reason controlled emotion. He came forward and peered down at the sleeping armsman.
“How long will he be like this?”
“I have no way of knowing. I have never used this on a human being before.”
Awe overrode the other’s personal fear.
“And you can knock us all out like that?”
“With a man of greater self-control or strong will, it would be a harder task. Then they have to be tricked into dropping their mind guards. But Snyn had no guards up at all.”
“That,” Zinga said smoothly, “is not going to be your way out of this, Smitt. If you are planning to have the sergeant go around and drop all the opposition in their tracks you can just forget it. We will either reason it out with them or—”
But Smitt was already aware of the next point. “We fight?” he asked almost grimly. “But that will be—”
“Mutiny? Of course, my dear sir. However, if you had not had that in your mind all along you would not have come to us, would you?” Fylh demanded.
Mutiny! Kartr made himself consider it calmly. In space or on planet Vibor was the Commander of the Starfire. And every man aboard had once sworn an oath to obey his orders and uphold the authority of the Service. Tork, realizing the officer’s condition, might have removed Vibor. But Tork was gone and not one man aboard the ship now had the legal right to set aside the Commander’s orders. The sergeant got to his feet.
“Can you get Jaksan and Dalgre—”
He looked about the rangers’ quarters. No, it would be wiser to hold a meeting in some more neutral place. Outside, he decided swiftly, where the psychological effect of the ruined ship right before their eyes all during the discussion might well be the deciding point.
“Outside?” he ended.
“All right,” agreed Smitt, but there was a note of reluctance in that. He went out.
“Now,” Zinga asked, after watching the com-techneer safely out of hearing range, “what are we in for?”
“This would have come sooner or later anyway—it was inevitable after the crash.” That was Rolth’s soft voice answering. “When we were space borne, they had a reason for life—they could close their eyes and minds to things, drugging themselves with a round of familiar duties. Now that has been swept away from them. We are the ones who have a purpose—a job. And because we are—different—we have always been slightly suspect—”
“So,” Kartr put into words the thought which had been growing in his own mind, “unless we act and give them something to work for, we may become the target for their fear and resentment? I agree.”
“We could cut loose,” Fylh suggested. “When the ship crashed our ties with her were broken. Records—who’s ever going to see any of our records now? We’re able to live off the land—”
“But they might not be able to,” Kartr pointed out. “And it is just because that is true that we can’t cut loose and go. Not now anyway. We shall have to try and help them—”
Zinga laughed. “Always the idealist, Kartr. I’m a Bemmy, Fylh’s a Bemmy, Rolth’s half Bemmy and you’re a Bemmy lover and we’re all rangers, which in no way endears any of us to these so-called human Patrolmen. All right, we’ll try to make them see the light. But I’ll do my arguing with a blaster near my hand.”
Kartr did not demur. After the resentment with which Jaksan had greeted him when they returned from the trip and the insane attack of Snyn, he knew enough to understand that such preparedness on their part was necessary.
“Do we count on Smitt, I wonder,” Zinga mused. “He never before impressed me as a ranger recruit.”
“No, but he does have brains,” Rolth pointed out. “Kartr”—he turned to the sergeant—“it will be your play—we’ll let you do the talking now.”
The other two nodded. Kartr smiled. Inside him was a good warm feeling. He had known it before—the rangers stood together. Come what might, they were going to present a united front to danger.
4 — BEACON
Together the four rangers crossed the ground burnt off by the ship’s drive to stand partially in the shadow of a tall rock outcrop. The sun was far down now—sending red and yellow spears of light up the western sky. But its day heat still radiated from both sand and stone.
Jaksan, Dalgre and Smitt awaited them, eyes narrowed against the light reflected from the metal of the Starfire—standing close together as if they were expecting—what? Attack? There were grim lines about the mouth of the arms officer. He was middle-aged, but always before there had been an elasticity in his movements, an alertness in his voice and manner which had given the lie to the broad sweeps of gray hair showing on his temples. In the golden days of the Service, Kartr realized with a slight shock of surprise, Jaksan would not have been in space at all. Long since, regulations would have retired him to some administrative post in one of the fleet ports. Did the Patrol still have any such ports? Kartr himself had not earthed in one for at least five years now.
“Well, what do you want with us?” Jaksan took the initiative.
But Kartr refused to be in any way impressed or intimidated. “It is necessary”—by instinct he fell back into the formal speech he had heard in his childhood—“for us to consider now the future. Look at the ship—” He did not need to wave his hand toward that shattered bulk. They had, none of them, been able to keep their eyes away from it. “Can you truly think that it shall ever lift again? We began this last flight undersupplied. And those supplies we have drawn upon now for months—they must be almost gone. There remains but one thing for us to do—we must strip the ship and establish a camp on the land—”
“That is just the sort of yap we expected to hear out of you!” snapped Dalgre. “You are still under orders—whether we have crashed or not!”
But it wasn’t Jaksan who had made the hot retort. Jaksan was steeped, buried in the Patrol, in orders, in tradition—but he was not blinded or deafened by it.
“Whose orders?” asked Kartr now. “The Commander is incapacitated. Are you in command now, sir?” He addressed Jaksan directly.